Professor Nina Gantert, from the Technical University of Munich, has been visiting the Department of Mathematical Sciences as a Chalmers Jubilee Professor. Her research field is probability theory.
Nina is not new to the department as she has been a guest for shorter intervals several times before. The first time she met her host Jeffrey Steif they were both PhD students, Jeffrey at Stanford University which Nina visited, although their collaboration did not start until later.
– In Germany, you may have a sabbatical after each nine terms of teaching. It is not possible to drop the ordinary duties entirely, for example there is still supervision to be done, but without courses and exams the obligations are much fewer. I had mentioned to Jeff that I had a sabbatical coming up, and he told me about the Jubilee Professor opportunity, which I was very happy to receive.
Nina works in probability theory. There are lots of things that seem to happen randomly where you want to know if it is possible to find patterns and find out why they happen. If there is a process in time with random influences, the goal is to know how the process behaves on a long timescale. Two examples from areas wide apart are stochastic weather data and the outcome of medication. In both cases you want to know what are random effects and what is a trend.
Abstract patterns
The research that Nina and Jeffrey have worked on, together with Malin Palö Forsström, during the three months Nina has been here has concerned abstract patterns which can arise if you apply certain random mechanisms. The patterns are much better understood now, and a paper will be written about it. As in most mathematical research, many follow-up questions have arisen and the work will continue. During her stay at Chalmers, Nina has also given a mini-course on exclusion processes, and several talks.
– I have begun a project on a model for infection epidemiology as well, together with Erik Broman and with Stein Andreas Bethuelsen from Bergen, who was a guest here in September. He was once a postdoc of mine in Munich, so it was nice to meet him again! And I have had time to go to seminars that are not in my exact research area, there have really been lots of good talks. In the coffee lounge, it is easy to meet people from all mathematical areas and have interesting mathematical discussions.
A different academic system
The academic system is very different in Germany compared to Sweden. The departments are smaller and there are few permanent positions except professorships. That means that you have more students and less colleagues, and that the PhD students most often go to industry instead of continuing as postdocs, since there is no clear career way afterwards.
– In the German system, it is more difficult to give young people an academic perspective. But, as said, the sabbatical opportunities are good, and the new President of Chalmers was interested in hearing about it when Jeff and I had a meeting with him.
Nina chose to schedule her visit in the months of May, June and September, when there is much daylight, to be able to also visit the city of Gothenburg itself. As she does not drive, she appreciates both the good public transport system and the fact that much can be reached by walking, not least since the campus areas have such a central location. In comparison, the campus in Munich is outside the city and requires a long time to commute to. In Gothenburg, Nina has taken the opportunity to visit nice cafés and restaurants as well as museums and parks, and to take the tram out to Saltholmen and jump on the next boat out to the archipelago.